Changes & Loss

This is probably the hardest post I've ever had to make.  Misty and I are getting a divorce.

Anybody reading this when it was posted should have know about our divorce already.  I need to get this written down, though.  I need to air out my feelings and get the story straight.  If you don't care, I don't hold it against you.  More fun and fancy should return with my next posts.  If you keep reading, though, be warned that this will get emotional.

I'm not going to go into great detail about the causes of the divorce.  I will say that nobody did anything egregious.  Neither of us were cheating and there was no abuse.  Essentially, we have changed a lot since we got married.  The feelings we had for each other changed over time, too, and we have gotten to a point where the lives we wanted to lead were too different.  So, we decided to call it off, after 8 years.

Of course, we had to think about Kay.  We both love her more than anything, and we always will.  We considered staying together to try to give her a better family life, but we decided that growing up in a broken family would be worse than to have separated parents.  It was decided that Kay would stay with Misty in Louisiana, with her family, because she could be taken care of properly there.  I visit Kay whenever I can, including a recent visit for her first birthday.  I've sent a webcam and digital camera to Misty, so she can keep me updated on everything Kay is up to.

That has been the hardest for me - missing Kay.  I've never wanted anything more than to see her every day, to watch her grow up first-hand, and to hold her and help her whenever she needs me.  It's incredibly difficult to even think about all the things I'm going to miss.  She's walking now, and just starting to talk.  She gets smarter by the day, and I'm not around to see it.  I even started to cry when I was watching a television commercial where a father comes home and is greeted by his daughter at the door.  My house is empty now, and Kay barely even recognizes me.  She certainly doesn't rush over to me when I show up.  Of all the hard things, that's the hardest - knowing my own daughter doesn't recognize me as her father anymore.  When she reaches for her mother when I pick her up.  Those things just eat me alive.

I know that she'll feel different when she gets old enough to understand.  I love my father, and I have no recollection at all of him before he and my mother divorced.  When she's old enough, Kay will stay with me for a while, perhaps for a summer or something like that.  I'm going to work my hardest to make sure she knows I love her and I hope above all things that she'll love me, too.  I'm planning another trip to see her in the next month or so, too.  Even just to hold her for one night is worth the time and expense for me.

I have to say that I can't shake the feelings of failure that this divorce has brought on.  I've said for years how I was gonna raise my family right.  I was gonna show everybody that I had what it took to be a great father, husband, and provider.  I can't help but feel like I fucked all that up.  All those times I told Misty I'd be there forever... and I'm not.  I don't regret getting married, or spending any of that time with Misty.  I just wish it could have worked out.  I've now spent a third of my life with her, and it's going to take a lot of time to get myself right.  No matter what anybody says, I'm always going to have this scar, this nagging reminder that I couldn't pull it off - I couldn't make it work.

I guess that's about it.  It took a lot of time and tears to write this down, but I want people to know.  Maybe, one day, Kay will be able to see this and know that her father loved her from before she was born, and forever afterwards.

When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Rampant Growth

I know, I know.  I'm a couple weeks late.  Here I am again, back on schedule.

Well, the diet didn't go so well last week.  Too many snacks, I think.  I'm back on it again this week.  I'm hoping to drop below 320 for my next weigh-in.  That's entirely possible, since I'm only 1.2 pounds about that.  I just have to buckle down again.

Kay has reached a very exciting time in her development.  She's crawling, teething, pulling herself up to her feet, sleeping in her own room at night, eating Stage 2 food, using a "sippy" cup and getting used to her new crib.  All of this all at once is a little overwhelming for Kay and Misty and I sometimes, honestly.  Misty wishes she'd slow down just a bit, but she's really proud, and so am I.  I'll have to remember to post some new pics and videos this week.

Tampa Bay Anime is evolving as well.  We recently appointed a new vice president, first of all.  She's a good friend of mine, too, and creative and clever besides, so I'm sure she'll help bring the club to a good place.  We're also changing our website.  For one thing, I want to get away from our current webhost, which keeps pissing me off.  I've had problems getting into my account far too often.  Once is too often, really.  Plus, getting that account under the same host as my others will help me maintain the site more regularly.  On top of that, we're converting most of the site into a Blogger blog, for many reasons, not the least of which is ease of updating.  I look to have that project done by the end of the month.

One last change that's affecting me is that my family is now on a stricter leisure budget.  I've got a set amount that I can spend purely on myself per week, and so does Misty.  We also have a separate budget for things we do together, or buy for the apartment or family.  Basically, we need to get moving in a straight line after far too long on a financial roller-coaster.  The budget's a little tighter than I'd like, and I'm definitely going to have to make some changes to my personal spending habits.  To be honest, those habits are a large part of what's gotten us into trouble in the past.  My first big challenge is saving enough to get BioShock, which drops this Tuesday.  I hope to get it next week, but the week after that is more likely.

So much going on... I might have to blog twice this week.  *gasp*

Current weight: 321.2 lbs
Total weight lost: 6.8 lbs

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

That's More Like It

We finally got back on track with our diet, and the results show it!  I lost 3.8 pounds last week.  That's more than I expected and the WeightWatchers website says that a bit too much, but I'm happy with it.  It means that I can get back on the diet when I fall off.  Sweet success.

Kay reached an important milestone, last week.  She can now sit up unsupported.  There'll be pictures of that online, soon, of course.  She can't pull herself up into a sitting position, but if we put her there, she stays there.  Now that she's discovered it, she seems to prefer that position, too.  I took her on a walk in her stroller that day, and she sat bolt-upright the entire time.  It's super-cute.  It also means, though, that some of her furniture is going to have to go very soon.  We're looking for a good crib... well, Misty is.

I'm working on my CCG Console program again, because I've spent more time with my cards lately.  I've already got a basic user interface with card searching and sorting capabilities.  Now, I have to get together a system to import and export card lists and game profiles.  I want to design that part our pretty thoroughly before I start coding, because it could get pretty complicated.

Current weight: 320.8 lbs
Total weight lost: 7.2 lbs

The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.

-- Confucius

Riding the Rollercoaster

Getting back on the diet is proving harder than I anticipated.  I gained again this week, if only 0.4 pounds.  I'm not surprised, though, since I ate poorly too often last week.  WeightWatcher's plan allows for a certain amount of flexibility, but I took it too far.  Once again, I'll just have to try again.  I will definitely lose weight this week.

Misty got to attend the Tampa Bay Anime meeting this week for a couple hours.  She hadn't attend for months, because of Kay, so she'd never seen our new projector setup in action or seen the majority of the membership in a while.  She had fun, and Kay was well-behaved.  It was fun having her, and I'm glad she was able to get out of the house for a bit.

Speaking of TBA, I updated the meeting archive on time this week.  That shouldn't be news, but my horrendous record in that regard makes it momentous.  I'm using emacs to edit the web site while simultaneously getting better at PHP, and those things introduce a learning curve and make the whole task take longer, for now.   Emacs is supposed to be a very flexible editor, but it takes a lot of getting used to, because it differs in many important ways from the editors I'm used to: Notepad, Visual Studio, etc.  It doesn't even behave like a normal Windows program, because it was originally created to work on a terminal, with no mouse or GUI.  It is very useful, though.  I can see the potential power in there - I just have to work to get in tune with the program.

Kay is trying her best to crawl now.  The only thing she can manage right now is scooting around in a circle.  She can roll, though.  If you leave her on her back for any amount of time, she's roll right over to her stomach.  She can even get up on all fours for a few seconds, but she hasn't quite coordinated everything into movement.  Soon, though.  If you're so inclined, you can see new pictures of her on my Picasa page.  There's also some pictures of Misty when she was a baby.  Marvel at the similarity!

Current weight: 324.6 lbs
Total weight lost: 3.4 lbs

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.
-- Wendell Phillips

Uncertain Times

I missed a couple of weeks here, because they were exceptionally busy.  It finally came to crunch time at work, so I had to work several nights and some weekdays.  That wasn't a lot of fun, but we did end up putting out a great product, which should roll out soon.  Metrocon also ate up a lot of the time I wasn't working, mostly because I procrastinated in making buttons and gathering prizes for our raffle.  More on that in a bit.  Finally, I was helping Kali with a Flash project for her class.  I feel a little bad about it, because it ended up being far more complex than it needed to be.  She's almost guaranteed to get an A, though.

All of this craziness meant that I spent little to no time on my diet.  I didn't completely pig out, but I didn't eat healthily enough to lose weight.  In the last couple of weeks, I've gained 0.6 pounds, which really isn't all that bad in the short term.  Now that all the craziness is behind me, we'll be back on our diet this week.  Expect weight loss to return.

Ah, Metrocon.  What a cluster-fuck that almost turned out to be.  For some reason, Anime Nation decided not to participate in this year's Metrocon, and they (through a friend) were the ones who were supposed to get me passes to the con.  I didn't know they had bailed until the day before the con, so I started to panic.  When I got to the con, hoping beyond reason that something would work out, it turned out that TBA had a table, but I didn't know which one, and I had no passes.  I walked around the con for hours (in my staff friend Justin's escort), looking for someone who could help me, but to no avail.  Finally, the con started, and I had no table or passes.  I started to despair when several TBA members found me and started to help.  They went out into the four corners of the con, looking for anybody who could help.  Finally, I got a call that all was taken care of, and I was able to set up our table and get to fund raising.  It was all pretty fun thereafter.  Special thanks to Mike, Jon, Les, Kali, and Angela for their help.  I'm gonna write up a Metrocon report today, and I'll have to make sure to thank them publicly there.

This was Kay's very first con, and she was a champ.  Misty and I worked out a system of taking turns watching her at night, and it worked out well.  We both ended up having a good time and we got to spend time together on the last day.  Kay drew lots of complements and even scored Misty a new friend from Orlando.  Pictures will be uploaded to the web this week.

Current weight: 324.2 lbs
Total weight lost: 3.8 lbs

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
-- John Quincy Adams

Now With More Gamercard!

I'm a little late with this one, but I didn't forget.  Work has kept me a little busy, but it hasn't really been that bad.  Things are going pretty well for me, right now, actually.

Metrocon is coming up, so I need to buckle down and get some buttons designed and created for Tampa Bay Anime.  Our last meeting before the con is this weekend, so it'd be nice if I could have something to show for it.  I did manage to get the code set up to automatically list the next meeting date, and I've started gathering tools for updating the website and forum on a more regular basis.  So, that's coming along.

Kay is at an exciting time in her development.  She's grabbing at everything, including her feet.  She doesn't quite crawl yet, but she's trying really hard to get the hang of it.  She definitely squirms across the floor well.  She's already managed to paw at my sound system, so I'm going to have to get serious about relocating my floor-level electronics.  She's started teething, too.  This is a time that I've been dreading.  It's varies in intensity - sometimes it keeps her up at night and she'll cry for an hour.  Other times, she's the same as always.  It's a little nerve-wracking, but it's nothing we can't handle.

We're getting settled into our diet fairly well.  We're starting to miss the foods we used to eat, but we're working together to choose meals that are good for us.  Of course, though, they've opened a Krispy Kreme across the street from us.  And they have drive-through window.  Unfair!

Game-wise, I just bought Puzzle Quest, finally caving to my friends' pressure.  It is a lot of fun, as I knew it would be.  Their characters are much higher level, though, so I'll have to play for a while before I can be competitive against them.  Other than that, I'm getting into Shadowrun for the PC, and I'm trying to finish Zelda for the Wii.  Crackdown, Ninja Gaiden Black, and Lumines Live spend about equal time in my 360 these days.  Also, I occasionally get to play World of Warcraft with Misty.  Good times for gaming.

Current weight: 321.2 lbs
Total weight lost: 6.8 lbs

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
-- Anna Quindlen

Full Steam

The diet is off to a great start -- I dropped three pounds this week. I was a little concerned that WeightWatchers' new point formulation for men might mean I'd have a harder time losing weight, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so far. I'll be wearing XXL clothes in no time!

Kay had another physical this morning. She's growing well, with no problems other than some mild acid reflux. We're keeping that under control, though. The doctor gave her the go-ahead for eating her first solids this week, and Misty was just thrilled about that. It's just rice cereal for now, but it'll be Stage 1 veggies in a couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll manage to get some pics & vids of her eating solids soon.

I've been getting very productive lately. Because Misty and I have started on our diet again, I have a few more reasons to get back to programming. I'm working on "Pantry", a program for organizing and building recipes, meals, and menus. I started on it long ago, making it one of my most-delayed projects. Now, though, I've been working on its design in Google Documents. I expect to be working on code on it soon. Before I release it, I'll want to get my personal web site back in order.

I'm trying to get more proactive about Tampa Bay Anime again, too. I put up a new news post about our current raffle, and I've started a thread asking for comments on our latest meeting. I want to make that thread a recurring thing, to keep our members active on the forum. Also, I'm gonna try to gather anime ahead of time, throughout the week, so that I can be thoroughly prepared for the meeting. My eventual goal is to have all news and threads ready to go on the day of the meeting, so I only have to publish them. I also want to put together little synopses of the shows we're going to see -- stuff I can show before the show to give a little info and context.

Anyway, that's all for now. If I get inspired, I'll post again this week.

Current weight: 322.8 lbs
Total weight lost: 5.2 lbs

The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.
-- Barbara Hall

I'm Not Big. You're Just Small.

Electric Goldfish puts my blog to shame. There's something new up there all the time. Meanwhile, here I am with no posts since March. The trick is to post more often about smaller things. It's inevitable that I'm going to have a lot to post about if I don't write anything for three months at a time. Then again, my natural verbosity works against me. Let's see how I do this time...

Misty and I are back on our WeightWatchers diet. Since we last used it, they've altered the system to work better for men. The end result is that i get to eat even more than I did under the old system. That makes it trickier to work out a menu that works for both Misty and I, but I think we're up to it. It'll get easier as we get back into the groove of it. I hope to have more input into the menu this time. This is week one -- again. This time, I'm starting at 325.6 lbs. My goal is 225, at which point I should be able to wear XXL clothes comfortable. Maybe even XL. It's been so long since I've been that small, I really have no idea. All I do know is that some of my 3X clothes are starting to snug up a bit. That just will not do.

I'm enjoying working at Home Shopping Network. The work is challenging and satisfying, and I have a significant amount of control about how I do it. My managers don't bug me, and I don't have to lead anybody. Plus, I wear jeans and tennies to work every day. Also, for the first time, my work will be used by millions of people all over the world. That excites me.

As you might expect, Kay is a big part of my life right now. I'm proud of her health, intelligence, and spirit every time I see her. I'm taking plenty of pictures to show friends and family, and I'm posting most of them online. I've even put up a video on YouTube. Check it out.



I've already got another one to post. Kay is getting very "talkative", and she just found her feet. Good times!

Anybody wanna start a betting pool about when my next post will be?

Current weight: 235.6 lbs
Total weight loss: 2.4 lbs

That’s the miracle of babies, their ability to lay bare the tender, beating hearts of raging assholes.
--Heather Armstrong

Triumphant Return

Wow. My last blog post was November 21, 2006. It's really easy to forget this thing once you've stopped for a bit. Lots of things have happened since then, so I'll give a quick summary, not necessarily in chronological order.

Most importantly of all, my daughter, Kay Lily Robinson, was born on February 9, 2007, at 4:07 PM. She was a big baby, weighing in at an impressive 9 lbs, 8oz. Misty had a couple complications due to Kay's size, but all went well, and they were both released on time. Right now, mother and daughter are visiting family in Louisiana. Gaze upon the fruit of my loins here.

In the meantime, I'm at a new job. I've moved from Chase to Home Shopping Network. The attitude and atmosphere are much more casual here, although the work seems no less challenging. It looks like they have much more of an "instructions-under-the-door" approach, which I like. The people seem cool and competent, too. I've been here for one week, so far. We'll see how it goes.

Misty and I spent the holiday's at her family's house, mostly because of her Dad's terminal illness. The trip was difficult for her because she was in the final trimester, and generally dull for me, but we felt it was for the best. As expected, all of our gifts were for Kay. ^_^ I don't expect to get any presents for myself for years.

I turned 30 this year. Meh. Doesn't feel any different. I took Misty's pregnancy as an excuse to not diet, but I haven't ballooned or anything. I last weighed myself yesterday, and the scale read 318. That's not too bad. I still want to get back to a good diet and exercise, especially since Misty will be able to share it with me.

I've been programming more lately. My latest project, CCG Console, is a program that will allow users to manage their collections and decks for any existing and future collectible card game, like Magic: The Gathering, VS, or Universal Fighting System. It's going well. I'm gonna try to get more organized about it this week. I'm also looking to get back to my guitar practice this week.

Whew. Looks like I have a lot to do this week. Next time, I'll talk about how Kay is changing my life. This is a whole new era for me. Come along for the ride! Wheee!

The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children.
-- Clarence Darrow